Catching Up

Posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2015.

I’ve been having so much fun with Charlie. My little sidekick. We have great adventures just the two of us during the day and then I delight watching his face beam with excitement when Parker comes home at the end of the day. It’s been a while since I posted, but I haven’t stopped my weekly photos. I am so blissfully present in these moments of motherhood that I don’t really take spare time to sit at the computer. I got a bike recently and I’ve been spending my evenings, after Charlie is in bed, out riding around my neighborhood. It’s been a great way to decompress at the end of each day, take some time for myself, breathe deeply in the fresh air, and have fun like I did when I was a kid. Summertime evenings have such a distinctness – the light is more golden, the air is thick and smells like grass, it’s still hot at 8pm. But riding a bike is the best way to make your own air conditioning. It’s been nice to have this new hobby.

What else is new? Charlie is 8 months now, crawling like a champ, has 6 teeth (4 that have been there for a while and two that just broke through the surface last week), and he’s really funny. He’s got a big personality, which makes me think he will have my sense of humor, but then he’s shy when he meets new people or we’re out in public which makes me think he’ll take after Parker. He’s still sleeping with us in our bed (which Parker finally moved back in to somewhere around 6 months when Charlie wasn’t waking up so much at night anymore). But recently, I re-strategized the nursery to make it a Montessori style bedroom which means I put everything down on his level. You can see a glimpse of it here. My intention is to gently foster independence so he feels confident and comfortable in his space and wants to spend time in there…and eventually sleep in there! Patience, patience, patience. We’re in no hurry, we like the cuddles.

Charlie is still nursing, but eating lots of food too. His first food was a strawberry (see second picture below) which coincided perfectly with the height of strawberry season so he got to taste the sweetest, juiciest berries right off the bat. He also immediately took to meat – all kinds. We are doing modified baby led weaning with him, which means he basically just eats what we eat. Sometimes I make or buy purees for him just to get him to eat veggies that are a little more difficult to get him to eat, and he also gets some oatmeal in the mornings for the iron. And I now keep snacks in my bag whenever we go out to eat because we have seen the consequences of trying to just wait until our food comes to feed him – it’s ugly. Squirmy, whiny, generally unpleasant. Now, however, I keep some freeze dried fruit or some Happy Creamies in my bag and let him munch while Parker and I have adult conversation.

Speaking of! We went on our first date night a couple weeks ago! It was a magical night. We wandered the Atlanta Botanical Garden for hours and went to a late dinner. It felt like the time before we had Charlie. So good to reconnect and feel like our younger, pre-baby selves again for a few hours. I was all heart eyes for him that night. :)

Anyway, here are weeks 15-26 (this year is HALF OVER! WHAT?!):

The extent of the crib’s use was, as you can see, a safe place to play while I got ready in the morning (I’m standing in the bathroom taking this photo).

First food: strawberries! It was love at first bite.

One of our Mother’s Day portraits that Parker took.

Our first trip with Charlie. We went to the beach at Port St. Joe with Parker’s family. It was nice, but I quickly realized a beach vacation with a baby is a totally different experience than as a childless twenty-something. It’s just mothering in a different location! Stil had fun though :)

Sometimes you gotta make your own air conditioning. It was so hot this day, I stripped Charlie down and let him feel the breeze on the swing. I think it was 86 degrees at 7pm when I took this.

Sitting on the front porch, waiting for Parker to get home. He can sit on my lap and entertain us both for a long time.

So, this is right around the time Charlie started crawling for real (he got up on all fours and had us thinking he was just about to crawl for weeks) and we decided we should store our bed frame in the basement and just put the mattress on the floor before anything bad happened. Since he still sleeps with us, he spends a lot of time in here and we just want him to be safe. As you can see, he was thrilled with the lower bed and immediately learned how to launch himself off of it and climb back on.

NAKIE BABIE!!

Pulling up all.the.time. This was when he first learned the couch was the ideal place to practice pulling up because it’s soft, his height, and he often has a captive audience right in front of him.

We’ve always used Honest diapers and just bought them from Target, but Target only goes up to size 5 and Big Booty DeBardelaben here moved in to a size 6 in June at 8 months old so we had to order them direct. This is the box they came in and as you can see, provided minutes of entertainment! Also worth noting: He’s gotten tan lines in his arm rolls this summer. *swoon*More standing! And showing off those top two teeth in this picture. He will stand at the sofa like this for 10-15 minutes at a time. And that chair in the background is his favorite cruiser. It scratches up my floor, but it’s sturdy and easy for him to lean on so he can practice walking. Ah, walking! It’s going to be here as soon as you know it.